


A Monster Moves in the Dark

by Good_Evening



Series: SPN Kink Meme Bingo 2018 [3]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Abuse of Authority, Anal Sex, Anxiety Attacks, Azazel makes some good points, Barebacking, Child Abuse, Comeplay, Dark, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Forced Drinking, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, M/M, Mindfuck, Poverty, Protective Dean Winchester, Sibling Bonding, Underage Drinking, Young Dean Winchester, Young Sam Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-15
Updated: 2018-08-15
Packaged: 2019-06-27 21:01:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15693312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Good_Evening/pseuds/Good_Evening
Summary: Although he loves him fiercely, Sammy knows Dean was forced into raising him, barely scrounging up enough to feed them both. They eat better when John returns from his hunting trips, but Sam starts to notice something's wrong with Dean. He knows John hits him, but what is their father doing that makes Dean's skin pale at the mention of his name? Why is he wearing their father's shirts?





	A Monster Moves in the Dark

**Author's Note:**

> Folks, this is dark as obsidian. Y'all read the tags and warnings. You know what to expect.
> 
> SPN Kink Bingo 2018 square filled: Clothes Sharing

**May 2, 1994**

The day Sam turned eleven, the family stopped in a town in Iowa with an unremarkable name and cornfields for miles in every direction. The blue-green horizon was endless, anonymous. Sam could wander for hours while Dean fixed the little farmhouse into their temporary home: a dilapidated but furnished two-bedroom their father had rented out for a couple hundred a month. The ghost haunting it was a no-brainer. Sam even helped, gained a sense of ownership like he had in no other home except Bobby’s, fleeting as it was.

The very night they moved in, Dean took the Impala to the Gas-n-Sip. Driving illegally, but so far out in the country that to parlay it into “Dad wanted me to take my first solo ride” was child’s play. When he returned with more than their usual junkfood--a brown paper bag he refused to share--Sam thought little of it.

“Have the courtesy to hide them under your mattress, this time,” he teased, expecting a _bite me, bitch_ , or _I read it for the articles_ , but Dean froze, face blanched. His lips pursed on a thick gulp, a gurgle of assent like his throat was stuffed with gravel. From the master bedroom, John barked at them to get dinner ready and Dean spurred mechanically to action. He trudged down the shotgun-style hall, stalled at Dad’s door. Sam heard a rustle of plastic and boxes. _I didn’t know Dad ate candy._

The boys’ shared bedroom door creaked and then Dean returned with a blank expression. Sounds of cooking filled the open frontroom while Sam studied. He bit his thumb in the silence, wondering what was lacking in a house in nowhere, realizing it was Dean in the kitchen, the air was heavy with steam and silence. Sam was wearing Dean’s baggy old pyjamas, Spiderman, and Dean was not humming. Dean always hummed while he cooked, even danced. One day, he’d drawn Sammy into a waltz the youngest Winchester had no idea how he’d learned. As if Dean suddenly had an existence divided, there seemed a sphere with Sam and nothing else, and a sphere he could never penetrate, and for the first time in his presence, Sam was aware of it. The world did not revolve around him (especially not since Dad had given him his own key to the house).

Maybe it was puberty. Dean had been moody for a while: up all night, leaving on walks that lasted hours, long showers, waking with deep pits beneath his eyes. Although he kept on top of the laundry, the weapons, and Sam’s meals, he avoided Dad at all costs. Not that John Winchester spent more than a few days with his children at any time, but Sam was infinitely more unnerved by the idea of Dean emulating that distance. He’d caught him staring off into the fields, the wind waving golden in the grass by the old yew tree out back. Dean had made him a wreath of it, since they had nothing else on the walls, and said it would protect him. From what, Sam drew a blank.

After dinner, Dean withdrew to his room with the paper. Subtle, Sam thought, but in a few minutes, his brother swung himself over the sun-bleached floral couch that had once sat on the porch, bearing gifts wrapped in newsprint and a giant gas station cookie. One of those fat pink ones heavy with mountains of frosting, and bundled with it, a Taurus themed lighter, “To blow out for your wish,” he instructed. Sam’s heart softened like it only did for Dean.

One of the gifts was simply Dean’s favorite flannel, the black and gold “Batman” one with the grease stains on the hem from when he’d cooked bacon too high on their camp stove. Sometimes they didn’t have a roof, but Dean still made a home for them, fed them. Dean was always there for him. Dean _was_ home.

They hugged because Dean let him, but a kink in his back, he groaned, was the reason he winced when Sammy squeezed him too tight in thanks. He apologize, blushing because Dean blushed.

John Winchester emerged from the den-turned-bedroom that Dean normally occupied to do homework. He kissed the top of Sam’s head after ordering his eldest to clean up dinner. A holster and a knife glinted sharply, still strapped to his thighs from his hunting trip, jeans still streaked in bright clay mud and deeper, brown stains that Dean would have to wash and dry before 6am. He hadn’t showered. He didn’t speak more than low grumbles that left Dean skittish like running from a landslide. Sam hated when his father did this; when he postured, overpowered; when he cordoned off Dean, clattering in the kitchen like a frightened housewife too pressured to speak. He grabbed two beers out of the fridge and slammed it shut. Dean jumped. Sam snapped the lead on his pencil.

John sat opposite him in a rocking chair weakened by a busted arm, his legs at sharp angles, overpowering the relic. It submitted to his weight with a short screech. Under his father’s blistering stare, Sam had to clutch his workbook to keep from barking nervous laughter at the absurdity of it all.

“Sam,” he started lowly, the way he might when he was disappointed. Sam’s heart dropped to his stomach. “I want you to know I’m proud of you,” whiskey breath, lighter-burnt fingertips, “and I” heat, musk, “wanted to share something with you,”

In the kitchen a dish slammed on the counter, rattled silverware and empty bottles. Sam watched Dean yank himself around the corner with a scowl as their father’s tone switched to a bellow, “ **Goddammit, Dean, be careful**!”

Sam flinched, scrawling across his answer in pen. The air reverberated between his brother and father. Dean’s breathing sounded like he’d taken a hit to the chest as his gaze locked on the distance between them. John ordered him to finish his chores and his pretty lips thinned until white. Still, he obeyed. Sam played through his favorite superhero scenarios; he was enough of a hunter to choreograph his rescue of Batman from Mr. Freeze, or the Riddler. His father turned back to him, the glint of two opened beer bottles catching his eye,

“You’re not a man yet, but you’ve earned a taste.” He handed one of the bottles, capped with rich foam, to his youngest. Sam’s blood pressure coasted on high, suspicious as his gloomy, watchful father clanked their bottles violently before they drank: he, deep draughts, and Sam, struggling to swallow, choking down as much of the bitterness as possible in one go, gasping when his dad chuckled and ruffled his hair. His scalp crawled and he hunched down. Paternal pantomime. John rose, alleviating the distressed wood as the chair creaked obscenely, sobbing with relief. Sam felt eyes on him, eyes on Dean in the kitchen doorway. The family that watches each other, stays together.

“Sleep tight, son,” John murmured as he wandered back down the hallway, toasting the air. Dean only smiled once he’d gone, tired, conflicted, and Sam was distraught by the idea that Dean’s first drink had not gone the same way.

-

After that it became unsolicited tradition, but Sam could hardly reason with his father’s drunken whims. Only when John drank, only when he was _home_ , did the second bottle emerge. Dean always shuddered over his chores, his novels. John’s shockingly gentle coaxing wrapped around Sam’s head about father-son bonding, what a child should gratefully expect of their parent--as if he were administering medicine.

That first night, Sam got drunk and vomited after tossing and turning into the morning. Dean didn’t come to bed until 3, when he entered their room freshly showered, skin red with heat, eyes downcast and exhausted. He went straight to work cleaning, though, carrying Sam over to the chair and Sam smelled tears, felt the crippled waltz of Dean’s legs as he dumped him in a chair, but the world surged up and his head lolled back. A fresh sheet waved in front of Sam like the wings of an angel, quickly tucked down to reveal Dean. He sopped up the drunken mess with soiled linens, fluffed one of the pillows, and dressed his baby brother in his oldest, softest pyjamas. Not a word passed between them about his own worries despite Sam’s tearful babbling, apologies, and hiccuping cries of _I'm sorry!_ _Is it okay? Is it okay?_

_Are you okay?_

* * *

  **January 24th, 1995**

They came and went from that otherwise unrentable (re: condemned) house over the year, but John’s presence decreased. Every time he visited, the tension nearly snapped the beams in the ceiling. Soon, as if in apology, the second beer came out for Sammy each night like clockwork. He once questioned why Dean didn’t get one, but John shut it down with acrid words, “He’s watching his figure.” Dean was leaner than the other boys at school and Sam registered that something was off. The fact that his brother suddenly struggled to clear his plate gnawed into him; Sam relied on him for everything, but Dean’s sarcasm proved impervious to even the most heartfelt look-how-supportive-I-am inquiries.

No. Chick flick. Moments.

The night of Dean’s sixteenth birthday, he really put in effort. Sam had tutored kids at every library from every town they’d passed through and earned enough cash to purchase (no five-finger discounts with _his_ morals) streamers, cake mix, and a couple of cassette tapes from the record store he knew Dean would love. Especially because he fought with their thrift store tape recorder every time Metallica came on the radio, struggling to hit the button before too much of the intro was missed. Sam was so pleased with himself, he took the long way home, past the little wood full of holly bushes, their berries glowing red like poisoned apples from a fairytale. For a moment, his life felt enchanted.

His face fell upon seeing his father’s truck at the bar near their house. It had only been a week and John wasn’t due back for another couple, at least, which meant the hunt had failed.

Which meant he needed to get Dean _the fuck out_.

Improvise.

_Can’t even leave him alone with our goddamn father,_

Take Dean to the diner and celebrate.

_The silence, why doesn’t Dean talk,_

Get him out,

_He just takes it, why wouldn’t he--_

enjoy the evening.

When he opened the door, book bag slumping to the floor, Dean was already there. Showered and nursing a lukewarm El Sol recently bought from the gas station; the receipt lay crumpled on the counter, two bottles left of six. Droplets fell to the soft grey cotton of the shirt sagging down one of Dean’s slender shoulders, Dad’s worn army-surplus tee. As he leaned back, the streetlight shining in the kitchen window lit beads of sweat, lining his neck even in the January cold. A blackened chain of hickeys lashed red across his tendons.

Sam blushed and his brother smirked halfway, eyes vacant. Alcohol did that to Dad, too. Questions tumbled through his head in a wave and dumped him like jetsam in front of his brother, carefully avoiding eye contact, sipping off the bottle without swallowing or savoring. He managed to collect himself enough to speak,

“How are you home so early?” he began carefully, taking in the tear-pink rims around Dean’s heavy-lidded eyes, his nose and cheeks flushed with alcohol.

“Didn’t go.”

“You dropped me off.”

Dean shrugged.

Sam waited for a reply and winced as his brother shouldered past him, juggling the half-empty bottle and drinking it easily. He worried the hem of his shirt, Dean’s faded red Ninja Turtles tee with Michelangelo holding his arms wide like wings. Dean sported bruises on his wrists, his shoulder. The cotton was soft as he stretched it, print cracked and ruined by a host of laundromat dryers set to a sterilizing heat. His brother stumbled as he walked, held himself up by the fridge with a fist as he tried to cover the limp. Refused to turn around. Sam pinched along an archipelago of stains that marred the torso from years of drive-thrus. It was comfort, safety. It still smelled like Dean. Dean did the washing, after all, he was the eldest, the provider, not a kid who wore kid shirts and said myopic kid things like,

“You’re fifteen, you shouldn’t be drinking.”

He tried to appeal to a decency he couldn’t claim, but the only drinks he had were practically shoved into his hands by his father.

“Sixteen, now, technically,” Sam raised a brow to half bitch-face as Dean plunked the bottle down and twirled it thoughtfully, muttering around the creak in his adolescent voice, “Dad came home early. He let me have one.”

Maybe John had the same deal with Dean. But the fact that he drank so freely at fifteen-sixteen, surely old enough to say ‘no’ to their father, when they lived with the results of that pathetic start to life--as if they, like the man who put them up, _had_ _no_ father--infuriated him. Dean smiled and noogied him, beer forgotten on the kitchen table.

“Cut it out,”

“There’s my Sammy,”

“He came home early,” Sam sagged in his brother’s arms, hugging him a moment too long before Dean sidled back and nabbed the beer, “at least he’s here for your birthday,” he hoped.

Any lighthearted mention of Dad was enough to quiet the room. Only when Sam attacked him for his failures did Dean ever try to force him back, defend their father, close the subject. If he praised him, Dean simply shut up. Passive. Their father was the one subject Sam had no way of sharing with him. It didn’t help that Dean was the one person who’d been father and mother to him, his entire life.

“Come to school tomorrow, bro,” Sam urged, but he let the subject drop when Dean’s sculpted brow curved up,

“Don’t call me ‘bro,’ bitch.”

“Don’t call me ‘bitch,’ jerk.”

His brother swooped in for another noogie but Sam parlayed it into another hug, anticipating the way his brother moved, embracing him like it would change something. Dean’s arms folded instantly, protectively. _Mama bear_. Sam squeezed tighter and savored the silent huff that signaled Dean’s content laughter. They stood there longer than Dean usually spared for chick flick moments, and Sam nuzzled into the tight, grounding squeeze.

Night fell, and with it, the peace of the rainy afternoon crumbled. Sam hung streamers (blue and white, discounted Hanukkah decor: 99¢) with a twist in his shoulders, ready to spring into action were his dad to fling the door open at any moment, shouting or gunning for his brother. He ignored the dour mood as best he could. Dean lounged on the carpet in front of the TV, legs on the couch, a creased and yellowed copy of _God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater_ clutched in his fists. Having drained the bottle of El Sol, he’d thrown on a sweater and anxiously awaited their father’s dinner hour. Sometimes John would come home first thing, but he’d already wasted hours at the bar. Not that Sam wanted him home. Tonight was his and Dean’s; he would fight for it, if need be.

Around 7:00, Sam was just pulling the cake out of the oven (Dean had pumped his fist on sight of the box and smiled adoringly at his little brother) when the front door creaked open. John lurched forth and slammed it, rubbing his dripping nose on his sleeves, cheeks flushed and wet with rivulets from the storm. He watched Dean’s shoulders tighten as he secured his bookmark and slid the novel under the couch. For how much light Dean brought to Sam’s life, he’d been born at an exceptionally grim time of the year.

Although visibly drunk, John was quiet. He’d been quieter every visit over the past few months, feeding into the vague malaise settled over the house, motel room--wherever he deemed safe enough to dump them. Only when something pissed him off did he manage a tirade. Which was an improvement, the obedient son in Sam whispered, although the thought insulted his pride. Dean had always been better at following orders.

“Thank you for cooking, Dean,” John managed the rare thanks with a squeeze of his eldest’s shoulder, sliding into one of the chairs at the table where sat his saran-wrapped dish.

“You’re welcome, Sir,” came the soft reply. Sam relaxed. Dean sank into the couch, the caregiver in him appeased as their father tucked into his meal and the distance between them held up. Things were almost normal.

Sam left the cake to cool as he started in on the dishes. A cautious, bewildered smile overtook his face at the absence of fighting, the ease of the evening. Dean curled up on the couch, absently biting at his thumb. No wonder his books were covered in dots. Sam had thought they were beer or ink drops, but his brother was picking and chewing himself bloody, as if being cooped up all day were driving him crazy (he hadn’t gone to school in over a week; although he was still a B+ student, even turned in every assignment). Dean wouldn’t even walk to school to drop off the hefty packets of essays and workbook pages, Sam had to. Their Dad signed off on every slip with some excuse, or rather, told his son to _figure it out_ , and left Dean to forge his signature, more often than not. They never stayed in one place long enough for a PTA meeting, and Sam had had passing friends assume the two boys were orphans.

John finished his meal and wandered over to the couch while Sam picked up the dishes to wash. He leaned in close to Dean’s ear, large hand firm on his shoulder, and Dean answered quietly. After that, Sam turned toward the sink to finish up the kitchen, missing what provoked their father’s sharp tone.

“ **I won’t hear it** …” Sam dropped a fork that clattered loudly in the metal sink. He hastened to re-scrub it as his brother’s morose voice rose quietly over the scrape of the sponge.

“... oh-two-hundred, Sir.”

Sam glanced back once the creak of floorboards down the hall left the room clear. Dean’s eyes seemed to sink into pits as he stared into nothingness, worrying his lip. He had to soothe him somehow; put on Zep, _find_ a pie, because as heroic and clever as Dean was, a true Batman, even Bruce Wayne lost battles. Despite close quarters, Dean managed to hide almost everything from his little brother--except for the bruises on his neck. Sam blushed and hunched over the cake, knife fumbling in a jar of icing.

Utterly silent, an arm snaked around his middle and he jumped, jar clattering to the counter with a short spurt of frosting. Dean whistled, ruffling his hair,

“You know it’s bad juju to waste sugar,” he smiled at Sam’s squirming, “you should lick it up! Like a puppy! Go git it boy, git it!” Dean laughed with force.

His little brother squawked indignantly, attacking the arm with windmilling limbs. Even his legs kicked up fruitlessly as he giggled, Dean tickling him, the extra weight sagging in his brother’s grasp but Dean could hold him for ages, like this. Dean towered over him in every way. Sam had barely passed the 100lb. mark.

“You eat it, jerk!” He gasped over a muscular elbow. Dean released him, bending over the counter and lapping at the vanilla streaks. Sam’s stomach flipped at the sight but he didn’t know why. A pearly trail of sugar blotched under Dean’s pursed smile crackled against his memory, but it was too indistinct. He couldn’t tell when or even where they’d lived. It hadn’t been cake frosting. They never had cake.

Dean licked the knife, his fingers, and stared down, flush with pride and a crooked smile, “Good job, Sammy. You gotta open a bakery, with cake this good!”

The weight slid off Sam’s chest with his golden smile, and just like that, nothing else mattered.

That night, they ignored their Dad’s curfew to curl up and watch dumb TV shows and then _The Great Escape_ on a VHS rental. “Renting” was Dean’s code for “shoplifting,” Sammy knew, but he let his brother believe in his own cunning. Halfway through, he realized he’d fallen asleep. Dean was gone, probably in the bathroom from the buzz of the shower. Sam nodded off to the rhythmic slap of water on tile, shower curtain, as Dean hummed sharp and tuneless, his breath hitching between higher notes. He dimly thought he heard their Dad, ordering his brother around as always, but that was par for course, in his nightmares.

When he woke next, there were minutes left on the tape and Dean was cuddling him, smelling fresh: skin red with heat: soft and scraped raw. Sammy smelled one of their Dad’s flannels and curled into the safe mix of their scents, smoky and sweet. He nuzzled his brother’s arm and crawled partway into his lap, half-asleep and tugging at a blanket that surely wasn’t there before. Dean petted him absentmindedly, carding fingers through his long hair, slowly relaxing from a tension Sam had not seen in him since Dad first stumbled in. Rain beat down on the thin roof, against the window, a quaking thrum that tugged him further into sleep.

A light hiss barely registered, Dean was saying something but the rain drowned much of it,

_’s okay...ne...er gonna let...t to you_

_Sammy, you’re...ly one...loves me_

* * *

  **March 30th, 1996**

It had started when Dean was barely fourteen.

 _That’s a lie,_ a part of him screeched, but his memories were congealed into masses impervious and overlapping. It was hard to think about his life. His father was always bigger, a giant as long as Dean could remember. Only at first, he thought, forgiveness and denial winding insidiously along his choppy neural pathways, only at first was it frightening.

Dean was fourteen when it started, but John had been playing this game for years.

 _Grooming_ , that wailing corner supplied, _like a broodmare_. He needed to stop watching daytime TV, those crime dramas had him hooked.

He shut the gate to the yard of their newly-rented house in the Colorado boondocks and began the slow descent to the sidewalk. Their neighborhood was hilly, marked by twisted pines and tall, pale aspens with roots as old as the town, leaving the concrete a jagged puzzle to surmount. Dean enjoyed the tiring walk, the fact that the bus couldn’t climb the hill and he and Sam often complained about the hike home together. Sometimes they’d skip over the cracks, pretend they were lava. The entire lane heaved over the floor of the old forest and it made a kind of concrete game board. A cracking human veneer covered the dirt.

Maybe three weeks in a month, maybe one, he made it to school in whatever town they’d stopped at. Thoughtful to the end, he’d purchased or lifted workbooks and novels for the weeks when they couldn’t settle, a month spent in some cabin, or the tent, or the car. Sammy would be a new breed of hunter, defined by his intelligence, his cunning. Dean intended to culture him as much as possible, for the lifestyle they lived, because he knew Sam wanted more out of life, Sam had _dreams_ , and the thought of him leaving sent spears of ice through his skin. Dean needed Sam to be happy.

Dean was happy as long as Sam was happy. As long as Sammy was happy, he’d stay close.

The youngest Winchester was nearly old enough to attend high school, but Dean was already a sophomore. His brother had skipped a grade and was ready to skip another, giving them more time in the same institution. His careful steps over the canyons between concrete slabs nearly became a dance at the thought of little Sammy wandering bug-eyed through the vast halls of some Midwest high school, big brother at his side to ward off dragons, jocks, and thots. Dean’s future seemed brighter than anything else in his life (except, of course, Sam). So when his father’s pick-up pulled up the road, his shoulders stiffened, posture burnt into military grace.

He thought he’d make it, today. His British Lit class was just starting in on Mary Shelley and he had every intention of spilling his conspiracy theories. His thoughts dimmed as his father gestured for him to open the door, some vague utterance about a witches’ coven based up one of the fire trails, as though no one would notice a caravan of Satan-worshipers trawling for lost hikers. Dean often questioned the methods of monsters.

“Does Sam know you’re here?” Dean huffed as he climbed in, having barely shut his door while the engine thrummed to life. The truck lurched and wobbled over the road, crawling north from their little town toward the range.

“Didn’t bother. Your brother needs to focus on his studies and I’ll only be here tonight.”

Sam mattered. His fists tightened. Sam mattered _more than anything_. Dean’s vision wavered over the grassy rocks of the countryside, body leaden, overburdening his will to stay upright and awake, alert. When he started to sag, John let him, which meant he was in an indulgent mood. A small part of him panicked.

John tended to drag it out when he was indulgent, made sure Dean was responding.

_He drove all the way from Idaho. For a night._

Dean couldn’t properly assume his father had spent all the time he’d been away in the place he’d said he’d be. John often lied or undercut the truth so severely, a seeming two-day trip could last a month, not that Dean dared question him, even at his boldest. John lied to Sam about most things. Only Dean knew at least some truth about their father: his hatred of tickling, where he hid his good liquor in the car, favorite songs to make love to. The way his shoulders moved in the dark. Dean’s thoughts were a mess of second guesses and self-loathing, in a panic to find what he’d done to incite his dad. What John’s expectations were. It was hard to guess where any given trail would lead and at that he wondered if he’s thinking of monsters or his mercurial father.

His mind fell into a spiral as his anxiety peaked. Queen came on the radio and calmed him a bit, but John switched it to the weather to prepare for the mountains. Winds scraped at the truck like a bear’s claws, sharp and brutal as they careened from the peaks and met the warmer gusts of the plains. All was grey and sickly green. As they began climbing the pass, the little town of Alma far in the rearview mirror, Dean felt his soul leave his body.

 _It’s just a night_ , he tried to reason, _then you can get home to Sammy, make dinner, ask him about that teacher he was gonna talk to.._.

As they pulled off the road, Dean’s stomach lurched.

 _Here?_ He thought with a shudder, _all the way out here for a tree trunk or the side of the truck?_

His mind whirled into overdrive. How to stop it hurting, how keep it easy when even the terrain was rough. How to stop it hurting on the drive back, now _that_ would be tricky. Dean didn’t bring anything on his way to school--except for the condom intended for his imaginary girlfriend, and that, he’d hate to waste. By the time John was out of the truck, his son was still shaking in his seat, struggling to calm down, thinking of Sam, Sam,

 _3.9 GPA, that one German course really bucked him off but the kid’s a natural with history and numbers_ ,

“Get the hell over here, Dean,” his father commanded. Dean’s fingers squirreled over the door handle and he pinched his coat, slamming it shut. John rolled his eyes as his son extricated the cheap jean fabric, propping a gun up to hold a case open while Dean stared at him, hand clasped on his elbow, lips slung open on a silent question. It took a deeper growl from Dad to get moving, to accept the hex bag and pistol carelessly tossed at him. To a silver knife, he applied a homemade potion stored in an old coffee can. The smell of sulfur swept by on a breeze and Dean was jarred to the realization. So. There really were witches.

“The oldest one’s gonna give us trouble. Got a hit on her name through the grapevine. Silver bullets. The knife is iron, tipped with belladonna and somethin’ nasty,” he stroked the blade with his thumb, eyeing Dean carefully, “fine to touch, but you’ll be useless if it nicks you. Got it?”

“Yes, Sir,” he affirmed, lips upturned as he palmed the shining handle. John trusted him.

“Up the road is a cabin. We’re leaving the truck here and climbing around the hill to come up the back. If you run into anybody, even a kid, don’t stop. The coven site is hexed to hell and back, no intruders. Only way we got in here was because of these,” he patted his hex bag, narrowing his cold gaze, “Don’t. Lose it.”

Dean nodded unquestioningly.

The walk up was excruciating. Hex bags or not, he could feel the barrier magic prickling his skin like touching a livewire. Every passing moment, the temperature hiked a little, the trees thinned their shade from the oppressive alpine sun, and bare, jagged peaks loomed closer, radiating in the strange spring heat. Dean panted as he shed his jacket, then his flannel, tying them around his waist and shuddering at the heat added to his legs. His father seemed nearly unaffected, only pausing to wipe his moist brow when Dean begged for a water break, frowning at him with a mix of calculation and unease. At the edge of the wood, the full breadth of the grey waste emerged: an alien landscape dotted with glaciers marred by a brown streak of trail climbing the snow patches. Tucked in the mighty shadow of an imposing ridge stood a tiny hut. One light hung above a porch no larger than the truck cabin.

Somehow, Dean had expected an impressive spread: a castle or mansion or plantation house (in the mountain, whatever, witches were crafty). Deception was essential to a peaceful immortality, he reasoned. And devil-worship.

John launched himself over a small boulder and planted firmly behind the broken trunk of a charred tree once struck by lightning. Dean surveyed the omen with a mix of curiosity and agony. _Even the trees are burning up._

“Did they have to climb all the way out here?” he asked no one in particular, expecting a harsh reprimand for speaking out of turn, but his father’s condescending tone never reached him. Dean leaned over the boulder, peering at the space John had just occupied. Hackles up, he spun on the forest, desperately sweeping over the scrubby trees and parched earth. His father was nowhere to be seen.

His heart jolted.

Sweat dripped down his neck and pooled in his clavicle.

Rolling like an angry sea in his periphery, the mountains were streaked grey with rare green stripes of malnourished vegetation. Dwindling glaciers beckoned to the fever in his flesh, and despite his fear, Dean found himself overcome by fever, parting the blackened branches of the stricken tree to survey the empty land and austere little cabin, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

When nothing clawed, bit, or struck him, Dean galloped away from the treeline to the nearest glacier, stripping his shirt to tumble on the gravelly ice, bathing in dirty, six-month-old snow. A pornographic sigh left his throat as the glacier kissed away his fever and his skin glowed with red patches like blossoms of blood. He rubbed at the river of sweat at his neck, unwrapped his flannel and covered it with snow so that when he pulled it back over his shoulders, he hissed in pleasure and embraced the freeze.

“ **DEAN** , **GODDAMMIT, COVER YOURSELF**!”

Shots fired but his fingers were numb, scrabbling for weapons he could no longer comprehend. He zeroed in on his father’s voice but found him nowhere. Suddenly, the world cast white, a blizzard at full blast and the bare slopes blanketed like he’d spent months in hibernation. Dean immediately hunched against the cold. The ridge shrugged off the dark treeline into the thinnest, pale blue shadow, and everything seemed reversed, distant. The cabin was at his back. The porch was ten yards away.

“DEAN, GET IN, NOW!” a fiery hand clasped around his arm and Dean shrieked, dragged from the glacier onto the porch, where his dad thrust him against the wall and fumbled with the latch on the door. “Out of your goddamn mind, shit,” he forced the lock and busted the door open, revealing a stony passage that evaporated into a black void thick with incense. Something more to what Dean had imagined a witch would call home. Soon enough, his father pulled him in and slammed the door, rattling his son in his fists as he searched for his weapons and clucking when he found them missing. Dean awaited the usual blow with a pained mewl, eyes open defiantly but lips quivering, yet none came.

The heat dropped at least twenty degrees. Candles in a sconce on the wall flickered out, and the cabin was suspended in a grey oblivion.

 _He’d abandoned his weapons and his father was_ \---

“There you are,” came the soft drawl from his father’s lips. Dean blanched, backing up toward the door, but nothing was there. Nothing was _anywhere_. His father’s face smiled but _it_ _was not his dad_. “You seem to get the picture, so let’s take a stab at where we are.” His arms spread mockingly, feet dancing back on the black, held by nothing, visible without light. “I’ll give you three guesses, pretty boy.”

The fever roared back to life even in the cold and Dean groaned in pain, gnashing his teeth, “What is this, your--your _lair?_ ”

Ridiculous, the sarcastic tilt to his father’s head, the sneering glare and unnatural set of his hands on his hips. Dean would feel revolted if he could spare the focus.

“Wrong,” his father’s mouth contorted, savoring the word as though an exotic language. Dean shut his eyes at the laugh, head pounding, skin crawling with fire ants. He folded inward to his safe place, one he often fled to when his father’s wrath was imminent. _Sam, Sam, Sammy,_

A vision of his little brother appeared, studiously bent over a workbook at the kitchen table. This house was in Oklahoma. Dean liked it because the nook meant Sammy and he could make eye contact during their respective duties; Sam could learn and write and read stories to him while Dean cooked dinner, washed up, cleaned so that when John came back, when John came back,

“Wrong. I’m counting this as another guess. I can hear what you’re thinking, after all.”

* * *

  **June 8th, 1994**

Dean blearily woke to the growing color of the room in his memory, the cracked green paint of the arch leading to the living room, the broken backsplash with the blue Dutch tiling. A sickening fishbowl effect thrust him into the complete kitchen, remade from memory, temples aching as though he were standing on his own head. In his own head. The smell of shepherd’s pie filled his nostrils, his favorite frozen food.

Sam craned innocently around the nook arch,

“What do you think, Dean?” he asked, pawing at the page he held aloft. He was shorter. Shit. Shit, shit, he must have been in elementary school still, just barely, and Dean then was fifteen, when they’d lived there, when he’d just gotten used to it, when--

“What do you think, sweetheart?” his father’s voice boomed, although he knew it hadn’t, only curled over his ear, deep: heavy with musk and the stink of liquor. Sam was asleep. It was early morning, black as a demon, and they, his father--John, _John_ , you call him ‘ _John_ ’ when he’s like this--were in John’s room.

Dean was fifteen and shivering.

“C’mere,” his father demanded, guttural tones shaking him to his core. Dean mewled as a thick, hot hand crawled up under his shirt, bathing his torso in heat, pinching at his skinny ribs and stroking down the childish pouch of his belly. “Love it when you wear my clothes, darlin’,” the growl reverberated against Dean’s heart. His blush wrapped around his ears. Southward, the hand cupped him, delighting in his ready reaction, the incandescent blush of his cheeks. His father’s laugh rattled his chest and stole the breath in it,

“That’s it, baby, feel it.”

“ _Please, Sir_ ,” Dean croaked, voice cracking, cheeks hot as one hand returned to his waist and crept lower. A thumb slid down his spine ‘til it settled above his pert cheeks, dipping into the slimy trail of lube that shined, deep into him. He felt gaping and _cold._ Empty. John had fingered him for hours after drugging Sammy to bed.

His father cooed indulgently,

“Call me John, sweetheart.”

Dean hiccuped, “ _J-John_ , it’s too--”

His father shushed him forcefully, the edge of his hiss tinged with amusement as Dean’s breath hitched, fingers creeping inside of him, stroking that spot that left him squirming and mewling for something to fill him. He must want it; that’s not just defensive thinking. He must, he kept responding, _reacting_. John eagerly abused the evidence, the awful yearning that overwhelmed his dignity. But if he resisted…

“Shh, you can take it. Remember your birthday? Such a good slut for me, open up, baby, let Daddy hear it,”

Taut and red, his muscles flexed around the fingers probing deeper into him, freshly-clipped nails scraping the sides of his channel. John’s stubble left near-welts in its wake as he bit into Dean’s neck to stifle a guttural groan. Dean grunted and writhed. Even the hair on his thighs scratched at his son’s sensitive skin. Everything about John was abrasive, raw, and yet it, it could still feel so _good_. Dean clenched his teeth over his tongue, drawing blood; thinking he must be sick, that something was wrong with him.

He winced, whining and hunching his arms, almost expecting a strike with how rough the fingers jerked, trembling inside of him. He shimmied his hips and moaned as his father purred low with lust,

“ _Don’t hide now, sweetheart, just a little bit longer_.”

Just like that, his arms were pinned above his head and John ordered him, “ _Stay put_ ,” so that he was compelled as if by witchcraft to obey.

This was his life, now, he thought with shuddering breaths. This was how he survived, how Sammy got a roof (albeit a leaky one) and hot meals (Dean did have to steal to stretch it). He could make it work. Made it work. See? He hadn’t stopped moaning or crying or shaking with each breath, like John liked. He even took thrill in it. His father relished the extent of Dean’s sensitivity, his own skills: John could be meticulous, bind him with words and wire, pierce his silent resolve by stroking his ribs, speaking soft praises only to yank back his hair with nails that gouged into his skull. Dean’s acceptance of blame was infinite. What victim enjoys what he, what, what happened? Was happening?

 _What I do, what I’ve done with him... It’s, it’s_ **_better_ ** _if it’s me._

 ** _I_** **_didn’t_** **_try_** _to stop--not that that works… it’s not a big deal._ _It isn’t._

_If I didn’t enjoy it, that would be it._

_I wouldn’t enjoy it._

He was grateful for what the attentions brought him as long as John’s presence was minimal, despite his yearning for a caregiver, a father to Sammy, a shoulder to cry on and, hell, a thigh to grind against. _Like you want a fucking husband_. He picked at the loose threads on John’s pillowcase to distract himself. A husband who fucked him would be suitable, easier to understand than whatever the hell family dynamic they had, now. He needed support. Dean could take anything, had to be strong for Sammy but that didn't leave much for himself. _Selfish, self-centered._ He could do a lot on his own. _But it could be nice..._

Awkward shuffling behind him alerted Dean to the snap of a plastic cap, the shift in mood. John’s breath was heavy on his ear, coaxing him from his side to his knees, a hand pressing at his neck while another pulled up his hips. Moonlight pooled in the delicate bend between shoulder and neck as he melted into the pillow and tried to disappear. The picture of submission.

“ _Ahh, nn, not,_ ” he whined, hips bucking back onto the rough, fiery hand while John chuckled, fingers tweaking on purpose to cause just enough pleasure or pain to force Dean to snap back to reality. John liked to bully him a little but Dean had a knack for adaptation; for taking one for the team.

More shuffling, and his father slid down on the bed to align himself with his quivering, pink hole, swollen and slick and _ready_ like he’d been thinking about this all day. Of course he had. John hadn’t stopped staring at him since he woke up. Dean had hardly had a moment alone in the tiny house, struggling to avoid his father’s gaze over the bottom end of a lukewarm El Sol: the anticipation, the _promise_. He’d felt fingers ghost up and down his flesh, raising the hair at the back of his neck. He knew when his Dad was ready for him, after all.

Even before Dean had first been pierced by his cock, John had reshaped him, mapping his most obscene responses, the angles that left his breathy moans warbling and choked with shame. Dean was an aberration. Dean _enjoyed_ being fucked by his father. What else could his erection mean? The swirl of his hips when a finger crooked to where he saw stars should be proof enough for anyone.

The fat head of John’s cock was hot enough to leave him gasping in apprehension and sick longing, the tips of his ears burning red. He buried his face in the pillow and shook with aborted thrusts, seizing jolts that flexed and pulsed through his abdomen. Nudge, grind, slide. He pulled away and arched his back as the tip brushed his rim, began to sink in. Moans slithered up from the pillow, lewd: high-pitched but muffled. Crackling adolescent tones emerged in his whines, the unsteady shove of air from his chest as John parted him, grinding down with purpose, inch by inch, abusing that button that made Dean shudder and squeal through tears.

A cut-off sob lodged in his throat when his father seated fully in him. It usually hurt, especially with the long breaks of hunting trips; even with John’s fingers prying him open for hours, he felt sick with the weight of his cock. Drawing back, John grappled with Dean’s hips and lunged into him, yanking the lean body into his lap and smirking as it loosed a shrieking moan from the boy’s lips.

From this angle, Dean knew John saw Mary in the elegant nape, the wanton shimmy of slick legs practically urging him forth as they shook with the effort of accommodating him. Dean could make himself so _tiny_ , when afraid: so slender and obedient. John leaned back and dug his fingers in to thrust in deep, hurried strokes, striking so hard with his hips, Dean punctuated his attacks with stifled screams. High-pitched grunting was muffled by the pillow, his elbows tucked under him with one hand spasming and clenching the sheets. His back met each of John’s violent thrusts of its own accord. Dean was _built_ for this.

John shifted position, knelt to the side and hiked one scrawny leg in the air, driving deeper and relishing Dean’s trained litany:

 _“Please, oh go--give it to me,”_ lips and cheeks moist from crying, veins pulsing, “ _now, come, come, come in me!”_ and worse cascaded from Dean’s lips, words John had taught him, that to ignite his fervor rather than fight it was a faster way to end.

Dean obeyed on instinct and when that failed, coercion. It hadn’t been hard to convince him of this duty, not that he hadn’t come to enjoy it like he was born for it; not that John hadn’t any other options, but no one else satisfied him. No one else would do _anything_ , sigh so sweetly, back rolling and tense with each of John’s thrusts, just like his mother. Breath heaving. Shining with sweat from the force of their lovemaking, Dean knew in his cells the way Mary had moved under him back when they had loved each other.

He came when he thought of forcing Dean to grow his hair out: of buying him gold earrings like staking a claim and bringing him on every hunt to keep his bed warm when Sam grew up. To keep him company. To laugh golden and be silent at John’s whim. Dean was made for this, the only child to remember Mary, graced by her. A mistake reformed.

He had plans for their future.

With a final shudder, John pulled out as his son whined desperately. He thumbed at the pearl of cum that emerged from the sore, red gape of the loose hole. Contracting without him. Thighs shaking shamefully as his instincts had him pressing back against the probing finger, sighing sharply when it penetrated him, brushed his prostate so he loosed a shattered moan. Dean burrowed half-under the pillow, clasped hands shoved against his treacherous mouth. His father stroked the pink streaks in the trail of his cum, his ego demanding another round that his forty-something frame could no longer provide. He wanted to stroke the small wounds, see the evidence of his girth and his claim on his child.

Dean took cock like a whore. He still bled and cried like a virgin, but he knew to clean up after and, by now, how to care of himself so that John didn’t have think about it when the mood next struck him. John couldn’t have found a better hole if he’d paid for it. He groaned when the boy ground between the sheets and one of his wandering hands in frustration, shivering and panting with angry little grunts.

 _It’s not enough, it must be me_ , _why is it never enough?_

“What do we say, Dean?”

“Please,” he cried weakly, glaring over his shoulder and wincing as the fingers in him dived deep and crooked, now three in number, not as thick as John’s member nor enough to get him off. His limbs slackened with relief as the pace ramped up.

“Please what?” John whispered, purposely keeping off that bump, roiling up the mix of semen and lube so that it trickled down Dean’s thighs and wet the sheets. _He’ll have me change them, before I can leave, I just know it_.

“Just let me,” he sobbed, face buried, again, “I want to come, please, _please!_ ” he broke on a pitiful whimper, schooled to react as a slut would, ashamed to his core when his father slung it at him in the throes of passion. If sluts were so bad, then Dean was even lower. He bared his neck with a soft gasp when the fingers brushed his spot. John growled, deep and imposing so that Dean tensed up with an exhausted moan.

In a second, he was flipped on his back, a harsh grunt punched from his lungs before the fingers drove back into him. His arms scrabbled for the headboard, head tossed back, grinding down onto the long, knobbly digits and wishing them magically thicker. John decided to pity him (rather, to enjoy the show--John did nothing without expecting payment and gratitude) and pushed directly into the bud, rubbing him closer. Dean’s legs drew up in trembling need, hands scrambling at once to hold himself open and clasp around his dick. He felt the slick passage of the fingers as they slid into him with a pornographic _schlick, schlick_ , paced as fast as his heartbeat. Within seconds, he came, wailing and shoving his hips down as far as he could get them, fingers buried deep yet stroking feather-light.

Breathing had to be relearned. The blurry light of the streetlamp down the road illuminated a sheen of sweat slick on both of them. Dean was much paler than his father, _Princess-pale_ , he frowned, whereas John was tan and creased with hundreds of scars.

Cold, slick, a familiar tickle on his thighs left Dean jumpy. The bed rocked obscenely loud as his father rose, pack in hand, stalking out to the patio for a smoke. Dean would need to clean up before he returned. He had responsibilities outside of Sammy, after all. He gasped until the sobs broke, suppressed his shivers at the shock of cold air John let into the room. His cheeks were cold. He wiped them and thought dimly of the future.

They should go hunting together, once Sammy was old enough, even if the thought terrified Dean on an atavistic level, his purpose to protect Sam paramount to his own existence. John was rough in the wilderness, but in a domestic setting, he demanded his eldest’s full attentions and a kind word was so rare Dean always assumed it was meant for Sam unless his father looked at him directly. Even then, he second-guessed, flinched at the sharpness of the stare. They were both hunters but no one made him feel more like prey. The less time his father spent cooped up, generally the better his attitude. He even treated Dean better, when he had some task to distract him. Home always left him edgy, a reason Dean could easily supply for why he stayed away so often.

He cleaned himself, washed his face in the little attached bathroom. Bundled up the sheets and dressed. Somehow, having Sam around agitated John, seeing him do schoolwork and watch cartoons with his older brother. Dean making sandwiches, brushing his hair. Filling as best he could the vast role of mother Sammy would never get to know. He wiped his eyes. It was a volatile time; John treated him almost gently, then punished him for nothing at all. If the name of their mother rose from his lips, it was more often whispered in Dean’s ear than spoken aloud for Sam to hear. He wiped his cheeks. Dean’s lip quivered as he remembered his father's voice curling around his head, loving someone long dead. He rarely allowed himself a thought on this. He wiped his nose.

Let their father fear touching Sam. Let Dean take the hits, keep the house running. He was good at it, he thought, cramming the dirty sheets as far into the washing machine as he could, stripping off the boxers he’d pulled on in haste. He wiped his eyes again at the sting in his backside, the rough feeling of dried blood and cum on his thighs. Let the water take it. Let the water run red and take it away. As long as Sammy’s innocence remained, his doting older brother could suffer anything.

If he had to give any reason, it would always be Sam.

* * *

 “John, John, _Johnny_ , you _rap-scallion_. You _rape-_ acious, naughty boy. Did you realize sweet Mary has been boarding with us? All. These. Years? Are you so eager to have a rack reserved for you--and, lemme guess, your guest of choice would be little Dean-o, here, wouldn’t it?” the demon stroked Dean’s ear, the boy’s lips parted around a whimper, eyes unfocused and lost to the fantasy. “King-size rack for you two. Couple’s manacles.” He sniffed behind Dean’s ear. John’s musk. “ _Intimate_.”

The Yellow-Eyed Demon paced leisurely around the cabin where John quickly lurched between him and his son, scowling, protecting the boy as best he could and yet Dean looked straight through him.

“For Christ’s sake, Dean, _it’s all in your head!_ ” he hissed. The demon laughed so hard his golden eyes sparkled with tears.

“That’s the kicker, innit? It _is_ , but it _wasn’t_. **C’MON** , **champ**!” He shouted, the boy hyperventilating through another memory, “I heard you got a hell of a Christmas gift in ‘93.”

The year he’d first crossed from alleviating his father with embraces into, that was, well, he didn’t remember _all_ of it. He remembered around the gaps the demon now carelessly exposed. Sam was still in elementary school.

Dad called him into his room, late, and Dean had _expected_ , but not to the extent of, of starched sheets scraping his face. Shrieking coils. The heat of a blistered palm closing over his neck to shove him down and spread him wide. Slide of fingers down spine, sliding down to open him up and sliding in, slick, sick, into him. Sliding flesh, sweat-prickled, tickling his back as John collapsed on him, trapped his limbs, always sliding, molten kisses down his spine with a blur of apologies. Sliding in, sliding out, nothing to catch but fingers on his hips, pulling him back, pulling him back. Nothing to hold back, just the pressing heat of it. His mouth was dry with the thick, sour taste of his cotton pajamas as his father bound his cries in the small spareroom.

An unusual ease between John and Sam, that night, he recalled around the smell of sweat and his tears. Crushed sleeping pills in the cider. His brother had complained but Dean tasted nothing strange from his own cup. Same powdered mix, after all.

“ _Dean!_ ” his father hissed as Dean’s lips trembled with the force of suppressing his sobs. He swayed back and forth on the floor, staring through him at the demon who kissed the thick atmosphere with a serpentine swipe of his tongue. Tasting the air. His eyes flickered in the darkness.

“It took determination to train up your eldest so _tenderly_ \--I’d be envious of your success if I were a pedophile, myself.” John fired the shotgun and missed, Yellow Eyes appearing in the dark behind his son, “Now let me guess what he sees when he looks evil in the face.” The demon took Dean by the chin and stared him down with a lascivious lick to lips that eerily matched John’s when he…

When the child cowered sufficiently, he patted at his cheek, a more fatherly gesture than Dean had ever known, and glanced up at John, “Shocker, it’s papa dearest. But I guess he calls you _John_ , nowadays, doesn’t he? Was _Daddy_ a little too real?”

John pulled the trigger and winced as it landed just beside Dean, growling when black smoke whirled by him with a cynical laugh,

“See you around, Johnny. I hope you train little Sammy too, for his sake. It’ll be much easier than breaking him in, myself, when the time comes.”

-

The ride home was deathly quiet. John seethed in the driver’s seat while Dean cradled his bruised jaw, hunched into the door, pretending to sleep. It wasn’t the demon who’d done a number on him. It wasn’t the demon who was embarrassed, frustrated, Dean there, stoic and willing as long as none of it came home to Sammy. Dark plains seeped into the fading blue of the horizon and the mountains cast deep shadows on the valley. Only a few lights dotted the barren landscape. Dean counted two cars, eyes shining from deep twilight. Yellow.

“I know you’re awake, Dean.”

He flinched. When John engaged, he _expected_. Dean straightened himself as slowly as he could, feigning exhausted submission when his heart was pounding. The kind of day that could kill a man, surely, and now John would want to relax. His throat bobbed, an emptiness occupied his torso and his heart felt like it was trailing in the wind, behind the truck: painful, piercing, and cold. His father spoke over the panic,

“That witch is in league with the demon that killed your mother. Powerful at glamour. Speaking through the veil, especially with her master. She lures kids your age by taking the guise of their... of people they knew.”

Sound came garbled, Dean barely heard a thing through the buzzing, cottony feeling in his ears. He couldn’t move his hands or they would shake and _soldiers do not shake_.

“Dean, I know she showed you me.”

For whatever reason, that sharpened his voice and cut through. Dean knew that tone.

 _Answer, fucking speak you asshat, dumb fucking loser whore of a shit son_ **answer him** _or_

“She did, Sir.”

Another few minutes swept by the window. Each gust that struck the side of the truck rattled Dean’s brain off track, forced him to his brace his aching ribs like a Pavlovian punching bag. He breathed. He remembered to breathe, at least.

_My name is Dean Winchester_

_I’m seventeen, three-and-a-half months old_

_It is 20:18 hours_

_I’m in Alma, Colorado, going..._

_55 miles an hour_

_Sammy’s home, safe_

_At home, Sammy’s home, Sam, Sammy, Sam--_

“When we get home,” Dean jumped and inhaled as his father spoke, low and rasping from the flask between his shifting thighs, “Make sure Sam’s eaten and then we’re gonna have a talk.”

His eyes closed, his grounding failed him. Dean barely heard his own bleary _Yes, Sir_ before he wandered back into his head.


End file.
